Answer to yesterday - it was a foot, it only had one thumb! You can see two thumbs on his hand here. But doesn't Bullet blend in perfectly with this tree?
When you see how well he blends here and have seen some of your long distance shots which show us how high up they usually are, I'm amazed you see them at all! Great shot!
@louannwarren thanks for asking - it is really rare for koalas, especially adults to succumb. We feel that the long drought both stressed the koalas, and would have put stress on the ticks as cattle numbers were declining (many farmers could not keep their stock), and cattle were dehydrating like everything else. The koala behaviour response was to spend more time down in low thick bush areas, rather than high in the tree tops.
These things probably all combined to see him end up with a higher tick burden and the parasite transferring into his system.
@olivetreeann very often it's a vague - is that a lump feeling, and then zooming in to find no it's a termite nest, or some dead leaves, or a thick shadow area, or a birds nest ... then finally, yes it's a koala! ;)
@louannwarren yes - perfect storm! to add to that perfect storm is that the retrovirus many koalas are infected with had been waiting for a big stress event, and it took over too which affected his bone marrow and so he couldn't replace the red blood cells the parasite was killing as a cancerous process set in. at least we kind of traced all the issues back in the end
These things probably all combined to see him end up with a higher tick burden and the parasite transferring into his system.
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Stay Safe
Ian